The newest Retail Performance Pulse is now available for download, delivering a detailed analysis of brick-and-mortar store performance for the retail month of November 2018.

The current RetailNext Retail Performance Pulse has been published and is available for download, providing an overview of brick-and-mortar store performance for the retail month of November 2018 (November 4 through December 1 on the industry’s 4-5-4 calendar), including the Thanksgiving/Black Friday holiday shopping weekend.

For the month as a whole, physical stores realized a 4.1 percent drop in sales measured year-over-year, on an 8.3 percent drop in shopper traffic. The drop in sales was offset primarily from a 0.4 point increase in conversion and a whopping 3.2 percent lift in average transaction value, resulting in a gigantic increase in shopper yield (sales per shopper) of 4.6 percent – its biggest gain since December 2016. While it’s clear shoppers go to fewer stores when they go out shopping, they are doing so with an increase intent to buy.

For the four-day Thanksgiving/Black Friday holiday shopping weekend, sales fell 7.6 percent from a year previous, on a 7.1 percent drop in shopper traffic. While ATV was up 0.3 percent for the weekend, conversion actually decreased by 0.2 points.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest and busiest day of November was Black Friday, November 23, but numbers were down year-over-year due to digital sales rising as a part of shoppers’ new connected journeys. However, due to earlier sales promotions, the second week of the month actually delivered an increase of 0.4 percent in net sales for brick-and-mortar stores.

Regionally, the country shared similar results, with the West region slightly outpacing the other regions overall. The West, Midwest and East all enjoyed large jumps in ATV (2.9 percent, 5.2 percent and 3.1 percent, respectively) and sales yield (5.2 percent, 4.2 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively). The South region, on the other hand, saw ATV fall 0.2 percent, but a very strong uptick in conversion of 0.6 points helped it claw back shopper yield to post a 3.2 percent increase.